"The worst mistake in the history of the human race"

[Athena]

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 You hit the nail on the head. You're making a huge and quite unneccessary assumption when you say things like "I'm not sure if it's feasible for everyone on the planet to do so". It isn't feasible. That's where economics come in. Scarce resources are most efficiently divided by a free market. Those who can afford to be, will be healthy.

This is a good example of isolation in the crowd. One imagines oneself as separate from the rest of humanity, and what happens to others, doesn't matter. This is the point where the evils that have consumed so much of theologically thinking begins.

Socrates on the other hand, would say, sooner or later, those who have been exploited will become a problem. Now we have to build elaborate systems to protect ourselves from "those people", and inside our gated communities we may feel safe, but is this freedom? Is this really the height of human potential?

[Plasma Snake[D]]

Maybe our brains will continue to get bigger until we look like the common vision of what an alien looks like (big head, little body, with four fingers).

[Athena]

No our brains are not going to get bigger. However, we need to us them better.

Agragarian cultures lived in peace and began developing the arts, including medicine. Their down fall, was they were as children, and probably would not have become technological societies such as we have today. War is the best motivation for developing technology. The whole mentality of warring people is driven, unlike the mentality of agragarian people's who are happy to amuse themselves with singing and dancing and athelic games.

Civilizations as we know them today, are a combination of these two types. They are best when balanced, but maintaining that balance might be impossible. The US was not nearly as invested in a standing army before WWII. It was much more an agragarian society, but it never demilitarized following WWII, and threw its whole education system into the rapid advancement of military technology, and has lost control. Now it is the momentum for war that controls the US, and I am afraid it will continue down this path until it is destroyed. That is the hunter (Genghis Khan, Atilla the Hum), lacking the balance of the gather, the peasants who just want to be left alone to till their fields and watch things grown, and share meals with their families. Until humanity stops worshipping the warriors they will repeat their history of warring and destroying themselves.

[weasel]

Quote by: Athena .....unlike the mentality of agragarian people's who are happy to amuse themselves with singing and dancing and athelic games.

It is important to point out that countless "agragrian" societies have been the most warlike in history. I mean come on. We're talking about ancient Rome (i.e. the Punic Wars), Greece (i.e. the Peloponnesian War), and many others who both farmed and waged devastating wars. Perhaps it is because most of these civilizations were so adept at farming (thus capable of feeding larger armies compared to hunter-gatherers) that their wars (often with other agararian societies) caused so many casualties. A larger surplus population also meant that everyone didn't have to farm to make a living so people could become scientists or blacksmiths (read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel).

And although I agree that war stimulates technological progress, many essential inventions were developed during peace time (like the lightbulb); creativity and necessitity play a much larger role in developing new technologies although they are not absent during war time.

I would also like to argue that the fact a civilization "sings, dances, and plays athletic games" does not automatically make it an agrarian society. You are describing culture in general and I would bet that every single society or ethnic group on Earth has its own songs, dances, and games whether it has even discovered the wheel or not.

[Beer]

Was there a general policy for humanity to change its level of subsistence? Some sort of general council in our pre-historic history? Humanity is nature. It happens. Does anyone know of Pol Pot in Cambodia? When you have a trillion voices telling their stories, which wise one will you hear?

[lightgigantic]

Quote by: Beer Was there a general policy for humanity to change its level of subsistence? Some sort of general council in our pre-historic history? Humanity is nature. It happens. Does anyone know of Pol Pot in Cambodia? When you have a trillion voices telling their stories, which wise one will you hear?

Here's something vaguely along those lines that I found
"I have no idea how well known are the following facts. I always thought that marmalade, jelly etc. were very old inventions, but they are actually quite recent and, curiously enough, a consequence of the Protestant Reformation. Before Luther there was no need for sugar in Europe, because there was an overproduction of honey. This traditional sweetener was a by-product of the apiaries, the main function of which was the production of wax for candles. This product was a monopoly of the Catholic monasteries and convents. Wherever these were closed or abolished, there emerged a market for something that, up to that time, had been a scarce luxury (that came originally from India): sugar. Coincidentally, the discovery and conquest of a New World in the tropics opened up the possibilities for the large scale production of sugar. I don’t know if it is possible to make marmalade with the help of honey, but sugar surely became the ideal component for the preservation of fruits. Another by-product of the Reformation, due to the newly created scarcity of honey and widespread availability of sugar-cane, was obviously the large scale production of rum and other sugar-cane brandies like the Brazilian cachaça. Earlier brandies were mostly made of wine and, being quite expensive, were consumed only once in a while by aristocrats and the royalty. As soon spirits became cheap, alcoholism reached an entirely new and much, much higher level all around the world.
"

[persephone]

While I can certainly see valid points in Diamonds essay, I feel that this argument cannot be looked at from a purely evolutionary/scientific viewpoint. Yes it does make more sense to have a smaller healthier population as opposed to a larger weaker one. The negative impact of close quartered living in larger populations is very evident, disease etc... However when I picture myself back in time a part of a hunter gather group, having the constant stress of being on the move and finding food, facing the choice of having to kill my own infant because I already have a two year old child I must carry and provide for the option of being able to stay in one place and provide for my entire family would be quite appealing. It almost seems an ethical issue. While disease and famine could possibly and has caused the death of countless infants throughout history, better that than be forced to consider infanticide in order for my family group to survive. There is more to life than just survival. Survival of the fittest works from a purely evolutionary standpoint but we have evolved beyond that kind of black and white. If we hadn't we would not see the need for ventilators and incubators for premature babies, but I suppose that branches off into another argument entirely.